It’s that time of year again. Silicon Valley has exchanged its standard hoodie-based uniform for something a bit more festive and has made its way over to the War Memorial Opera House to celebrate the 10th Annual Crunchies. Like last year’s show, tonight’s host is comedian and actress Chelsea Peretti.
After an open nomination process, the members of our Crunchies board voted for the finalists over the last few weeks and tonight we’ll announce the winners.
There are 11 awards up for grabs tonight. Those range from “VC of the Year” and “Angel of the Year” to awards for “Best Technology,” “Founder of the Year,” and “Best Startup.” The TechCrunch Include Award for “an organization or individual that has advanced inclusion in tech” also returns for the second year in a row. New this year is an award for best startup video.
The show starts at 8pm Pacific and for those of you who couldn’t make it, we’ll keep a running tab of all the winners in the list below.
We will update this post throughout the evening.
Congratulations to all our winners!
VC of the Year
An investor whose bets on founders and companies have borne fruit this year
Kirsten Green, Forerunner Ventures (winner)
Kirsten is the founder of Forerunner Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm. With nearly two decades of investment experience, Kirsten combines an experience and thesis-driven approach with a consumer centric view, to identify visionary entrepreneurs and compelling brand platforms. Through her work at Forerunner, she has raised in excess of $100M and partnered with some of the most promising companies in the current evolution of commerce/retailing.
Aydin Senkut, Felicis Ventures (runner-up)
Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners
Stuart Peterson, ARTIS Ventures
Angel Investor of the Year
A breakout portfolio
Naval Ravikant (winner)
The CEO and co-founder of AngelList also sits on the board of Uber and Twitter and has made 88 personal investments since 2007. Ravikant is someone many in the tech community look to as a leader and go to for investment advice and remains an active angel investor.
Troy Carter (runner-up)
Hardware of the Year
Breakout hardware product of the year
Snapchat Spectacles (winner)
No gadget made a splash in 2016 the way that Snapchat Spectacles did. The technology itself isn’t revolutionary, but the recording sunglasses have made a mark on the marketing world, building a huge amount of hype around the city-by-city Snapbot launches.
Bevel Trimmer (runner-up)
Markforged Mark Two
TechCrunch Include Award
An organization or individual that has advanced inclusion in tech
Project Include (winner)
Diversity in tech is a topic that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The goal of Project Include is to make the the conversation a lot easier to have. Led by Erica Joy Baker, bethanye McKinney Blount, Tracy Chou, Laura I. Gómez, Y-Vonne Hutchinson, Freada Kapor Klein, Ellen Pao and Susan Wu, Project Include provides tools for tech CEOs to help foster working environments of inclusion for underrepresented groups.
Tony Prophet, Salesforce (runner-up)
Best Technology
An exceptional recent technological achievement
CRISPR- Cas9 (winner)
CRISPR (pronounced crisper) stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Not only does it have the potential to radically change the genetic code of all of humanity but could also fundamentally affect our health care, food system, farming and even the manufacturing and production industries.
Tesla Solar Roof (runner-up)
Social Impact
Excelling in using technology to advance social impact
Kapor Center for Social Impact (winner)
The Kapor Center for Social Impact aims to make the tech ecosystem more diverse and inclusive through community engagement, financial investment in underrepresented founders and STEM education for underserved kids.
Signal Protocol (runner-up)
Best App
A recent standout that has earned a place on your home screen
Pokémon GO (winner)
In the last year, no app has made quite as big of a splash as Niantic’s Pokémon GO. Kids and adults alike flocked to the app, which was the fastest-growing mobile game in history. Plus, Pokémon GO was the fastest game to ever hit $500 million in revenue.
Musical.ly (runner-up)
Founder of the Year
A founder that has made a statement in leadership or execution this year
Jeff Lawson, Twilio (winner)
Twilio’s CEO and founder Jeff Lawson has not only grown Twilio to a market cap of $2.5+ billion, but he publicly launched the company at a time when tech companies were hesitant to IPO in the midst of a semi-turbulent market. In fact, he did it the day before the Brexit vote.
Tristan Walker, Walker & Company (runner-up)
Jessica O. Matthews, Uncharted Play
Morgan DeBaun, Blavity
Best Startup Video
Best launch or explanatory video
Snapchat Spectacles (winner)
Slack (runner-up)
Hot New Startup
A startup founded or publicly launched this year
Otto (winner)
Otto is an autonomous startup focused on the development of self-driving technology for trucks. The company works on technology that enables drivers to let their truck steer by itself on certain parts of the highway. Otto also provides solutions that can be fitted onto trucks, thus supporting drivers to have safer journeys, take small naps, and even have lunch while the vehicle is self-steering.
Prelude Fertility (runner-up)
Best Startup
Slack (winner)
Aside from that odd, full-page ad in The New York Times, Slack has had a shining year. In 2016 alone, Slack launched a beautiful new NYC office to tackle search and intelligence, and the company finally launched threaded messages, which makes all of us winners.
Stripe (runner-up)
Highlights from the 10th Annual Crunchies Awards
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